I had hoped to get this post out earlier, but this week kicked me. So here we are. In my last post, I shared what is now known as Swatch 1 and some of my thoughts about how the size would work out. But something was bugging me. I decided to do a second swatch and go down a needle size.
Now there's been a lot written about the importance of your swatch, so I am not going to repeat all that. But here's the thing, I was never going to get gauge as the pattern was written, so why not take the time to see if I could get it with a different size needle?. After all, I want to be able to wear this. And because it is a big, boxy design, making it too big could make me feel like I'm wearing a sack, not a lovely piece of work. So I knit another swatch, blocked it, and then compared the two.
Here is the original swatch
Now here is the second swatch.
Then I did some math.
As you can see, Swatch 2 actually gets me the same gauge as the original pattern. Conclusion, I can go ahead and knit Size 1. Row gauge is a bit off, but because this is cardigan has no shaping, I can fudge the length if I need to. Oh, and I can't explain why the calculations for the button band are different for each size as the band is the same, other than that there was some grace in the original measurements.
So, will be casting on this week, as soon as I finish a pair of socks for grandkid.